· Public charity
United Way of Lancaster County
To advance the education, economic mobility, and health of our community by mobilizing resources, people, and organizations.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $7k
- $10k–50k21 grants · $415k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $285k
- $250k+2 grants · $2.9M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LANCASTER GENERAL HEALTH | $1,488,869 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,452,730 |
| ASSETS | $60,000 |
| LOFT COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP | $60,000 |
| COMMUNITY ACTION PARTNERSHIP | $58,000 |
| TENFOLD | $56,525 |
| LANCASTER COUNTY HOUSING & REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES | $50,000 |
| LET'S GO 1-2-3 | $41,891 |
| ECHOS | $41,750 |
| COLUMBIA DREAM CENTER | $40,750 |
| LODGE LIFE SERVICES | $34,725 |
| THE FACTORY MINISTRIES | $31,952 |
| GOODWILL KEYSTONE AREA | $20,000 |
| BRIGHTSIDE OPPORTUNITIES CENTER | $20,000 |
| CROSSNET | $18,500 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY17–25, $2.6M) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
53 repeat relationships — 20 still active in FY2025, 33 since wound down; 9 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $224k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- LGLANCASTER GENERAL HOSPITAL6× · 2017–2022 · $1.6M · revenue +74%
- LCLITERACY COUNCIL OF LANC-LEB LVA4× · 2017–2020 · $1.1M · revenue +209% · 64% of their budget
- TFTHE FACTORY MINISTRIES7× · 2017–2025 · $1.1M · revenue +128% · 34% of their budget
Funded once
- LCLANCO CARES RAPID RESPONSE GRANTS (INCLUDING 25 GRANTEES OVER 5000)one grant, 2021 · $247k
- LCLANCO CARES RAPID RESPONSE GRANTSone grant, 2020 · $239k
- LELANCASTER EDUCATION FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $213k · revenue +23% · 38% of their budget
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Enhance public safety and the quality of life in lancaster by engaging the community and advancing current crime prevention strategies.
Empowering people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (i/dd) and their families to lead full, satisfying, independent lives of their choice.
Lancaster equity coordinates efforts to advance communities where everyone has an opportunity to thrive, whether that be through neighborhood revitalization, living wage work, entrepreneurship, or safe and affordable housing.
The mission of the lancaster county council on aging is to provide a system of coordinated and comprehensive services to enable older persons of lancaster county to continue to maintain their independence.
Support member businesses through education and promotion, and support the quality of life in lancaster county through promoting compatible economic development.
To enrich the quality of life in Lancaster County by building vibrant and inclusive communities connecting arts, culture, education, and economic vitality.
The lancaster general health foundation is organized and operated to benefit, perform the functions of, or carry out the purposes of members of the healthcare system of lancaster general health, a non-profit corporation described in…
The lancaster chamber of commerce & industry's mission is to create the environment, facilitate partnerships, and lead on issues that elevate business success. the strategic plan is to position lancaster county businesses to thrive. by…
To advocate for and provide quality services to people with developmental disabilities and ensure their health, safety and welfare while promoting personal choice and growth.
To positively impact lives by mobilizing people and resources in lancaster county with an emphasis on healthy communities, youth opportunities, financial security and community resiliency by partnering with organizations and community…
We promote equal access to justice for all in lancaster county by funding public interest law projects, delivering pro bono service, and educating the public on civic and legal issues.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mental Health America of Lancaster County and the most unlike its peers is Patients R Waiting Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 31 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 9% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
67 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 67 of the 90 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds NURSE-FAMILY PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER GENERAL HEALTH ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER GENERAL HOSPITAL ↗
- Who funds LITERACY COUNCIL OF LANC-LEB LVA ↗
- Who funds THE FACTORY MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ACTION PARTNERSHIP OF LANCASTER COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds LUTHERCARE ↗
- Who funds EPHRATA PUBLIC LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds ELIZABETHTOWN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds PLANT THE SEED OF LEARNING INC ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF LANCASTER INC ↗
- Who funds NEW HOPE COMMUNITY LIFE MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds BRIGHT SIDE OPPORTUNITIES CORPORATI ↗
- Who funds UNITED CHURCHES OF ELIZABETHTOWN AREA ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER COUNTY FOOD HUB ↗
- Who funds ASSETS LANCASTER ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER DAY CARE CENTER ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds TENFOLD ↗
- Who funds MIDPENN LEGAL SERVICES ↗
- Who funds PENNSYLVANIA FURNITURE MISSION ↗
- Who funds ARBOR PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds PARISH RESOURCE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE LOFT COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds UNION COMMUNITY CARE ↗
- Who funds ELIZABETHTOWN COMMUNITY HOUSING & OUTREACH SERVICES ↗
- Who funds SWAN SCALING WALLS A NOTE AT A TIME ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER HEALTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER-LEBANON EDUCATION FOUNDAT ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Lancaster County Community Foundation · The Steinman Foundation · High Foundation · Clark Associates Charitable Foundation · Central Pennsylvania Food Bank · Ferree Foundation · Pryor E & Arlene R Neuber Charitable Trust · City Limits Foundation · Ppl Foundation · Touchstone Foundation Supporting Organization · The Abigail L Longenecker Memorial Foundation · Fulton Family Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization United Way of Lancaster County funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.